Most financial institutions are built like fortresses—high walls, limited access, information locked in vaults. But our Dirt Lending business operates with an open architecture where deals get done in full view and information flows freely.

The philosophy runs deeper than mere disclosure requirements or regulatory checkmarks. Jana Markowicz, Chief Operating Officer for U.S. Direct Lending, described this as foundational DNA. “There’s so much to be learned from the information that we have and the conversations that our team has on a regular basis.”

The result is what Markowicz called a fundamentally different relationship model. "What we really try to instill in our teams and also our external relationships are that we do what we say and we say what we do,” she said. “And I think that creates a lot of transparency, which is valued by our partners."

The transparency doctrine extends into all levels of financial decision-making. "Our investment committees are open to, and quite frankly, the entire team is expected to sit in and pay attention on our investment committee meetings so that they hear how people are challenged, they hear the questions that are asked, and the answers that are provided," Markowicz explained.

This informs decisions across the entire platform. "We maintain a pretty open architecture,” Markowicz said, “so that we can have our teams benefit from the vast amount of information that we have access to at Ares, whether that's market information and market intel across the teams that sit around the world."

The performance data explains why this matters. While traditional bank lending contracted seven times over the past 25 years—pulling back precisely when businesses needed capital most—private credit contracted just once. When the 2008 financial crisis sent banks behind regulatory barricades, private credit kept the funding flowing. When COVID-19 triggered an economic shutdown, private credit firms were among the first to provide bridge financing to struggling companies.

Markowicz framed this transparency as the Ares cultural bedrock: "It's deeply ingrained in our culture that folks should very much value and take advantage of the access to that information that they have, and also to share it with others across the platform."

The foundation rests on what she called "a partnership of accountability"—mutual responsibility that creates trust. "We're accountable to our counterparts. I would like to think our counterparts are also accountable to us,” she said. “And when both parties or a group of parties feel that level of accountability to each other, that's a very strong partnership."